


Run To Me

by BriannaNicole



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apathy, Detailed Self Harm, Established Relationship, M/M, More tags to be added, Past Character Death, Rick needs help good lord, potential season 7 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-07 07:28:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7705840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriannaNicole/pseuds/BriannaNicole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick has given up all hope and leaves Alexandria. Of course he gets himself into trouble. </p>
<p>Will Daryl make it to his lover in time to save his life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was half written from before my writer's block!! 
> 
> The title is from Hozier's song Run. (Beautiful song go listen to it!) 
> 
> Any and all mistakes are mine, i hope you enjoy!

"I'm done, we're over."

Rick's words are final and resigned like he'd been forced to say such horrible things. Daryl is caught off guard, he’s floored. He never thought it would come to this, even with the huge ordeal they just went through he thought they were doing well. The hunter could've sworn they were happy together. Daryl chokes on himself, chokes on his shock.

"Wha? Wha’ ya mean we're done? What did I do?"

There is panic in his voice, disbelief. Daryl is comfortable with their relationship now, they'd fought for it. They'd defeated his demons together through years of trying and sometimes failing. Only Rick could have done that. Only him and now...

"Just done."  
Rick's eyes are vacant like his soul has bid him goodbye, the man standing in front of him only a shell of what he should be. This isn't right... _can't_ be right. This isn't the truth. Daryl steps forward crowding his leader's space, he places a hand on both slumped shoulders feeling how fragile his lover is. How empty he is, almost like he'd blow away with the breeze. Rick sways with the touch, doing nothing more. 

"Ain't been nothin' but good to ya man, why?"

His grasp is shrugged off like it means nothing. Clouded blue eyes look up at him before they close, the portal to his emotions unlockable. Daryl pulls Rick close into a one sided hug and is given so little to hold on to. It feels like Rick has lost weight already, like he’s lost all confidence and faith. His arms hang limp at his sides. 

"This cuz a Glen?"

He gets no response, just a stuttered intake of breath. Daryl holds his lover close to his chest burying his face in sweaty waves. He leans back to look into those vacant pale eyes,

"Rick ya gotta talk to me. Is this about Glen?"

Rick shakes his head and pulls away from the hunter, he's let go of reluctantly. 

"I gotta go." is all Rick says before turning to leave their bedroom. 

"Nah. Ya ain't goin' no where by yerself."

"Let me go..."

"No."

Daryl reaches out to rub a gentle hand down Rick’s back, stopping to curl it around his hip. 

"Get away from me."

"Babe."

"Daryl." 

There's a clear warning in Rick’s graveled snarl as he brushes Daryl’s hand off and turns on him. 

"No!"

Daryl’s ass hits the ground before he can think to counter the shove. Rick looks right through him sprawled out on the floor. There’s no expression on that handsome face, he hasn’t even registered what he’d done. Daryl has never allowed anyone to put hands on him like this other than his older brother and father. He wants to retaliate but decides not to. This isn’t what Rick needs right now. This isn’t what they need as a couple. 

As two people who knew almost from the beginning they were meant to be. They were always something to each other even when neither of them had no clue what it was. Daryl wouldn't let Rick just walk out on him. Not now. Not when he’d earned this, earned Rick and _fuck him_ if he thinks he's just gonna leave, not after everything they'd been through.

“Fuck man, wha’s tha for?”

Rick mumbles a hushed apology and turns to leave.

The hunter stands to his feet but his lover is already slamming the door behind him. When he rushes to reopen it he discovers it's locked. 

Daryl can't get out. 

\---

Rick doesn't remember much after placing a chair under the handle of their bedroom door. He ignores the harsh echo of Daryl’s banging and cursing throughout the house. He leaves in a hurry, not looking back as he nears the gates of their community. The streets are empty and Spencer is missing from his post again, normally Rick would be angry but now he’s glad. There would be no one to stop him from slipping outside. At this point anyone who tried to stop him would not be treated nicely, man and woman alike.

It’s time for him to leave, time to disappear and hopefully never come back. He hasn’t cared since he watched Glen be beaten to death in front of him. Since his whole group kneeled in front of Negan and was forced to submit everything they had. Since he looked in the mirror at the black and blue bruises Maggie pounded into his face before Daryl pulled her off. Rick didn’t fight her, didn’t lay a hand on her, he stood still and let her remorse appear on his face punch after punch. He hasn’t cared and hasn’t slept in days, his memory washed in blood, regret and guilt.

Rick is beyond the tree line by the time he realizes he doesn’t feel the familiar weight of his Colt on his hip; neither does he have his hatchet glinting proudly in his hand. He doesn’t turn back for them, doesn’t stop walking. He deserves to be as helpless as Glen was when he was so violently taken from them, his life brought to a halt at the end of a bloody bat in front of his pregnant wife. Maggie lost that baby because of him, because of his _damned_ pride. That little boy or girl didn’t have a chance so it’s only fair that he not get one either.

Bushes reach out greedily at Rick’s clothing ripping them but still he walks. He walked to escape his mind but of course it follows along behind him like a raggedy black shadow. A watery chuckle rakes his throat as it crawls its way out, he knew he couldn’t distance himself from it but fuck it he's still going to try. Rick continues to make his way further into the wilderness looking straight ahead.


	2. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick comes up with a plan to get rid of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING** This chapter contains details about self harm, if this is a trigger for you PLEASE do not read.** 
> 
> This was unbeta'd and probably has many errors but hey. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this and thank you for your patience, I just started school so I've been a little busy.

Time ceased to matter as Rick trudged along, his sluggish gait hindered even further by each rock and branch he tripped over. His arms still hung by his sides, his back hunched, tired eyes unfocused on absolutely nothing. Despite the cool chill in the air his waves clung to his forehead. Rick walked still, pushing himself towards oblivion. The leader was exhausted but the further he got from his gated home the better off everyone would be without him. 

He looked behind himself to make sure Daryl wasn’t following him. He broke up their relationship for a reason. Rick wanted nothing to do with himself anymore and couldn’t fathom how the hunter could love him with all of his failures, especially this one. He had let his entire family down and deserved whatever happened to him out here, weaponless and utterly vulnerable.  
Rick had no idea how many miles he’d covered before his feet stopped, his knees giving out. He didn’t register the pain of his knees colliding with the hard ground beneath him. He kneeled there feeling less alive than he had ever felt. Rick hadn’t felt quite this dead since he got shot.

Eventually his body fell back, his ass hitting the ground. Rick didn’t register this pain either as he sat with his legs stretched out before him, his hands unclenched and numb in his lap. He lifted his stare from the ground between his thighs to the sky. It hung heavy and threatened rain. Maybe the rain would wash him away but never his foul sins and incompetence. Maybe there would be thunder and earth quakes to shake him apart and bury him in the grave he dug for himself when he walked away from his life. 

Along with the sky every tree and leaf seemed gray and without life, like everything had been sucked dry with him. It was almost like Glen’s death and Maggie’s grief had effaced the entire world and now there’s even less than before. 

Rick paid no attention to the cold as his hands unzipped his jacket and slipped it off his shoulders, next came his thin white shirt. He threw them away from himself like they’d offended him. Along with those he removed his shoes and the threadbare socks he wore with them. Rick frowned. He hadn’t planned on doing this, undressing himself for the no one and everything to see. He guessed he needed to be stripped bare like Glen was, open and unprotected. 

Unsafe. 

Once this was done, his hands fell back to his lap and he sat there motionless. For how long, he didn’t care. His mind has been chaotic since that night, itching to find a solution to something that could never be re-figured or solved any differently.  
His children.

Carl and Judith. Rick left them behind without even the simplest of goodbyes. He turned tail and abandoned two of the three people who meant the most to him in this world. They needed to be saved from him. He couldn’t save them, couldn’t protect them. Daryl would, that Rick is sure of. The hunter would look after them like he always has even before they were more than platonic friends and brothers. 

Daryl would save them; he would lead their people much better than he ever could. 

Still, Rick wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t recognize the hurt in Daryl’s eyes when he left. He heard the tremor in his voice, the look of desperation. Rick had had that same expression as he tried to find a way from Negan’s grasp, he knew that fear by hard. Knew the all-consuming terror in his gut when he realized he didn’t have a say over anything that was getting ready to happen to his group.

The bastard was right, he doesn’t know shit. Never did. And look what happened because of his arrogance and pride. Rick had hated to do this to his love but he had no choice, he had to save Daryl too.

By now the chill of the evening air was beginning to creep into his skin little by little, but he would not reach for his clothes and warmth. The ex-cop felt as though he was past these things now, he didn’t need them. Didn’t want them. Goosebumps rose on his arms anyway, he let himself shiver, let the slight breeze blow through him as though he were made of holes. 

Time still slipped by Rick but he no longer cared to watch it, he let it dance past him, swirl around him. Go on without him. 

_Failed. I failed. The promises I made to Maggie…I -_

Rick’s brow creases, his head tilts. There’s a handle to some weapon sticking out his shoe. He forces his body into motion, crawling over to inspect it. A simple black handle pokes out.

It’s a knife, its blade a dull silver but clean and just about 4 inches long. Rick turns it around in his hand realizing belatedly that this is the knife Carol let him borrow some time ago for something he couldn’t remember. The weight is unfamiliar. He’s never used it much but carried it as a thanks to his friend and had forgotten that he’d slipped into down in his shoe. He ponders on whether or not he should keep it or throw it away with his clothes but sits down with it anyway. 

Rick stares at it, wonders what he should do with it. He wonders if it’s his right to have it, it’s a means of protection and that isn’t what he wants right now. It isn’t what he deserves. 

Now Rick is irritated, he has a weapon and this isn’t what’s supposed to happen. He’s supposed to be waiting for walkers to come devour him or people to come kill him. He’s supposed to be helpless, that’s the point of this.

_Knife. Walkers. People. Come get me. Silence. How do I make them come to me?_

The leader’s eyes shift from the blade of the knife to the bare skin of his arms, without thinking he sits back to make the first cut.  
The first step to this phase of his plan. 

His first attempt doesn’t yield anything but a thin red line, barely grazing the skin. Rick has never had the urge to hurt himself before so he’s tentative, hesitant, and unsure of how hard to press. It’s easy to do this to someone else when he feels threatened but this is different, this is _his_ body that he’s sliding the blade across. Even now it’s just a means to his end. 

Rick’s second attempt actually breaks the skin, he feels it give way and sees the blood starting to flow. He breathes through the sting and readies himself to go just a bit deeper. There’s pain now, pain he’s not accustomed to bringing himself but he doesn’t stop. 

_This will make them come_

Rick makes a cut for everyone close to him that he’s lost and pushed away. One for Glen and Maggie, Carl and Judith, his entire family that he abandoned, his lover that he left locked in a fucking room alone. 

When Rick is done he has two open and bleeding wounds on both upper arms. 

_Four wounds. Four failures. Four reasons to go away._

Step two. 

Noise. 

_Bring them to me_

Rick reaches around blindly until he finds a stick. Once found he commences to beating it loudly on a tree trunk and when that breaks he finds another and continues. 

_If I yell. If I scream Daryl may find me. He can’t find me. Not yet._

The chill makes it harder to move the way he wants, his fingers feel stiff around his stick but he’s on a mission now. The pain in his arms is just a minor nuisance. Rick knows what he wants to do and he’s not going to stop until he gets the result he needs. 

_Not until they come_

Then finally…finally on the fourth branch with considerably less bark on the tree he hears leaves shuffle, the first tell-tale moan of walkers coming his way. The leader beats against the tree until the stick breaks and he’s sure the walkers have honed in on him. 

Rick sits down again Indian style feeling the cold seep further into his skin, he looks around and takes in the bleak scenery one last time. 

He waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure that someone has wondered why I write about this stuff, it's because I want to bring awareness to this. This is a real everyday thing to some people, at least it was to me. This is something I still struggle with and I want someone else to be able to relate to this as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think.


End file.
